Be aware of all the financial implications that are in place when it comes to passing down assets to your heirs.

If you prefer not to sell your home prior to retirement, you can also go with the route of considering whether or not you want to leave it to your heir. There are numerous assets such as: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and annuities that are available. However, remember that there are going to be tax consequences that you should plan out before you make the decision so you don’t end up paying a significant amount. Weigh your options, or even speak to a financial advisor so you can get on the right track.

Tax Exemptions

If your property is essentially below the federal estate gift and estate tax exemption – which is typically $5.45 million for 2016 – you can avoid capital gains tax on the appreciation. So, for example, if you bought a house for $200,000, and the value has made it go up to $550,000, your heirs’ tax basis on the house will typically be the difference between the value on the that you die as well as the sales price.

Check For Depreciated Security.

An example of something that you shouldn’t do when it comes to assets is to pass down depreciated securities on to your children or heirs. If you purchased a stock for $50,000 and it depreciates to $30,000, there’s basically a $20,000 capital loss deduction. Once you die holding onto that loss, it is no longer an option. But, remember that tax consequences do vary, so it’s important that you consult with a financial planner in order to proceed in a financially smart manner.

Real estate investment groups are a great way to begin your investing journey.

You may have heard of real estate investment groups, but do you actually know how valuable they are to one’s portfolio? Real estate investment groups are a bit like small mutual funds for real estate properties. If you are planning to own a rental property, but you don’t want to involve yourself with the hassle of becoming a landlord, a real estate investment group might be right for you.

About Real Estate Investment Groups

Companies tend to buy or build a set of apartments or condos and will then allow investors to purchase them through the company, thus being a part of the company’s financial plans. An investor can own single or multiple units of living spaces, but the company that is operating the investment group will help manage the units, take care of the maintenance, interview the tenants, and all the other procedures that a landlord will typically perform on the property.

Real Estate Investment Group Hunting Tips

In exchange for maintaining and managing the units, the company will take a percentage of the monthly rent. The standard version of a real estate investment group is that the lease is in the investor’s name and all of the units that are within that company’s hold, will pool a portion of the rent to, meaning that you will receive enough money to pay the mortgage regardless if it is empty or not. It is a safe way for someone to get into real estate investment. However, there are vulnerabilities that can haunt the mutual fund industry – that may hurt your investment as well. Like always, be sure that you perform the proper research to protect your assets.

When you think of the name Len Blavatnik, a number of different things may come to mind. Like many people, you probably think about how this man is one of the wealthiest in all of Great Britain. You may think of Access Industries and the tremendous impact it has had on the industrial world. You may also know that the man attended some of the best schools in the entire world and succeeded at all of them.

However, you should also know about this Blavatnik Young Scientists Award, which he uses as a tool to help uplift young minds who may need a bit of financial help following in his own footsteps. Aside from the scholarship that goes with this award, recipients also get a good deal of press for it as well. Obviously, if the head of Access Industries thinks a young mind understands a thing or two about science, it’s worth paying attention to them.

So, in the future, the next time you hear of the man, see him top a list for his wealth or use a product from Access Industries, just know that he is working hard to make the world a better place in more ways than one.

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If you’ve ever heard of the New York Academy of Science, Len Blavatnik needs no introduction. Aside from being one the richest men in Britain, the man at the top of Access Industries is also a world renowned philanthropist.

Just like the average taxpayer, banks have to report their finances or they may face steep penalties for failing to alert the government or investors of potentially fraudulent activity. There are actual several layers beyond the Bank Secrecy Act, although this important piece of legislation is one of the most frequently evoked in common political parlances.

Why Banks Report

Banks have to report their financial activity for a few reasons. Capital reserve requirements are one big one, so reporting finances helps assess the amount of capital a bank must keep to protect from a serious market crash. The state of a bank’s finances can also affect the institution’s credit rating, which affects every action the bank takes. The statement is also a representation of management. Management is supposed to run a bank properly, so financial statements should be able to adequately account for all of the bank’s financial transactions.

In 2002, in response to the Enron and Worldcom scandals, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It created a list of responsibilities a corporation’s board had to be accountable for. It also outlines criminal penalties for anyone caught breaking those regulations.

The Bank Secrecy Act

During the 1970s, money laundering became a serious problem that needed to be formally addressed. Congress decided to help “safeguard the financial system” by establishing some requirements for record keeping. Banks had to keep track of certain transactions that would lead to analyzing the movement of money, as well as the volume and type of currency. This would prove instrumental in finding and catching money launderers, although the challenge of routinely catching illegally circulated money still persists.

About the Author: Phineas Upham is an investor at a family office/ hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media and Telecom group. You may contact Phin on his Phineas Upham website or LinkedIn page.

Today, when the average person wants to purchase a home he or she has to find a lender willing to loan them money. That money comes at a particular interest rate, which the lender uses to make a profit on the loan. This was not always the case. Throughout American history, home ownership has been an important component to our rights and society.

There was a time when it was quite difficult to get a loan. Prior to the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of 1932, loans, if they were done at all, were given by insurance companies.

These mortgage payments were more like short term loans, and nearly all of them had some kind of balloon payment attached. This put people in debt perpetually, so the Bank Act of 1932 was a response to that. Home ownership means stability, and the opportunity to retire in relative safety.

If banks got involved, and loans were amortized, the repayment of debt would be a much more realistic prospect. This evolution in banking gave birth to the Federal Savings and Loan boom that occurred shortly after the Great Depression. Capital was cheap so long as lenders lent their money to individuals seeking home loans.

Once the loans were coming from banks and not insurance companies, repayment terms became manageable and more people would retain ownership of their homes. This was a major stepping stone on the path to wealth accumulation for many Americans, especially veterans.

About the Author: Phineas Upham is an investor at a family office/ hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media and Telecom group. You may contact Phin on his Phineas Upham website or LinkedIn page.

One of the most common problems and disputes that occur during a construction project is a delay. While it may seem insignificant from afar, the real trouble comes when a legal claim arises from one.

Construction delay claims are one of the most common cases but also one of the least understood. These claims focus on a construction project that has either been extended or held off due to unforeseen circumstances. Delays often force contractors to extend the schedule past the due date as well as accumulate extra costs that will cover things like an idle workforce and lost efficiencies.

Many times these delay are caused by circumstances that are out of control of the contractor. Unanticipated weather changes and design errors are only a couple of reasons why a delay may occur. It could even be the fault of the owner if they initiated any changes during the project’s construction. While these are all excusable reasons, the contractor still has to maintain responsibility to prepare for any foreseeable and unforeseeable conditions.

When a delay claim is filed, there is the option for both parties to enter a construction mediation phase. The mediator, which is the neutral negotiator between both parties, decides on a reasonable outcome that will benefit both parties after hearing the facts of each side. One of the reasons why mediation is important is because the claim will be settled before the court becomes involved. Not only does an owner lose time but also money during a lawsuit. Mediation must involve both parties voluntarily agreeing to reason with each other.

Bio: Lyle Charles is the president of Lyle Charles Consulting, a management firm that specializes in the construction and fabricating industries.

Taking on the roles of CEO and business advisor isn’t too much of a big deal when your startup business is in the beginning stages of its life. The problems occur when you begin to grow. Your focus gradually shifts to what generates your leads and impacts your revenue rather than sitting down and having a financial discussion. To put it simply, it’s rather taxing.

Many small business owners don’t take advantage of the financial managing skills an accountant can bring to the table. They’ll take that lead weight off of your shoulder and take care of the operations going on behind the scenes.

Before you hire your accountant, you want to make sure that they are qualified. Perform the usual background check and their credentials but also find out what their specialties and communication skills are like. You want a good fit within your company.

Once you have the right candidate, be sure that communication between the two of you maintains continuity. Quarterly reports should be discussed, which do not even have to take a lot of time at all. Save time schedule these meetings so you don’t fall behind and have to schedule a last-minute discussion that goes over the last 4 quarters.

A good accountant will help you stay afloat and will save you the time and energy of having to deal with all of the finances yourself. You don’t have to invest an arm and a leg for one either. The “right” candidate is different for everyone’s business.

Bio: Ferhan Patel is the Director of Global Risk and Compliance for the global online payment platform Payza. For more information, visit them on their website.

Countries have reasons to let their currencies become devalued, and sometimes those reasons are out of the hands of government policymakers entirely. In modern economics, most currencies are what are called “fiat currencies” and they derive value based on the policies that the governments who create them make.

This means the market value is a variable dependent on the policies of the moment. One example of such policies is when a country holds its currency value relative to that of a larger, more established country like the United States.

Currency devaluation in modern markets really hurts investor confidence. For one, access to information occurs in real time so investors are well aware when the signs of devaluation occur. Speculators will sell first, which puts pressure on the country in question to move forward on a devaluation officially.

One way to look at when a crisis is occurring is to look at real exchange value relative to the nominal exchange rate. If the real rate depreciates and falls below the nominal rate, a crisis has occurred. However, countries might try to hide their real value in order to stave off a crisis. This occurred most recently in Greece.

Speculators with imperfect information can actually accelerate inflation and devaluation. This happened in 1994, just after NAFTA was signed. Mexico benefitted greatly from access to foreign capital, but political uncertainty in the region hurt the value of the peso. As a result, speculators pulled out and the economy tanked.

The path of upward mobility begins with financial management. If the average person could better manage his or her money, savings would thrive and we would all collectively handle risk better because we’d have a stronger financial cushion. Banks aren’t doing a very good job of providing those services right now, not for lack of trying, but they are bogged down by regulation preventing them from innovating and growing. The solution involves smaller companies that are better equipped to handle consumer demands.

Shrinking Classes

The shrinking of the classes has as much to do with savings accounts as it does with jobs. The average person can’t see his finances every minute of every day, so poor people living paycheck to paycheck have an especially hard time balancing their budgets. We collectively need technology that better services the populace, delivers financial statistics relevant to our lives and encourages us all to save more.

The Question of Risk

Banks can’t afford risk right now because regulation has forced them to keep cash in reserve, rather than for lending purposes. What was intended to safeguard against the collapse of the financial system is instead fueling a frugal approach to lending and risk. Fortunately, smaller startups represent less risk and are considered safer investments. Big banks are finally beginning to experiment with smaller personal loans, access to credit and other concepts that were too expensive or risky before. They are just doing that experimentation through a sandbox of sorts, where small startups are raised to try new strategies in consumer finance and fail.

All of these change are driven by access: in the edge of the smartphone, the cost of money ought to be sensible.

About the Author: Samuel Phineas Upham is an investor at a family office/ hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media and Telecom group. You may contact Phin on his Samuel Phineas Upham website or Facebook.

Whether you’ve heard of the Blavatnik Foundation or seen Len Blavatnik in the news, you can probably guess that this USSR-born entrepreneur has an interesting story behind him.

Blavatnik was 21 when his family was able to get visas allowing them to leave the USSR and come to America. Once here, it was clear that his ambition would take him places. He would graduate from Columbia with a masters in computer science. He then went on to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School.

However, before he had his MBA, Blavatnik was the head of his own company, Access Industries. The company is currently located in New York, but has a presence all over the world. Amongst other things, the company is focused on real estate, media and chemicals.

This is far from the man’s only passion though. He also has a philanthropic side to his personality, which he expresses through the Blavatnik Family Foundation. For over 15 years now, the foundation has focused on providing entitlements to those looking to receive a better education or providing to the world of art and culture. The British Museum is one of the foundation’s favorite recipients, though there are a number of others on that list too.

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Len Blavatnikis an entrepreneur unlike any other out there. From his humble beginnings to his role in Access Industries, he’s a great example of the results of hard work